Consistency

In physical, mental, and intellectual training, consistency is everything. Consistency along with the firm belief that with it, inevitably come growth and evolution towards a more perfect state.

Promise to Self while Doing Heel Raises This Afternoon

Finished up my leg day, this afternoon, with slow, weighted heel raises.

People with strong feet and calves don't get plantar fasciitis.

When I get done with this injury, I promise to myself that I will never quit doing slow, weighted heel raises.

Waxing Gibbous

The misty moon, waxing gibbous, was just above the horizon at run time this morning. A chilly wind out of the north-west stirred up the tree limbs, just now showing the first signs of spring. This moon is a good metaphor for the late start in my annual running cycle: it's late April. The year is about to be one quarter over and I am just taking my first tentative steps to rebuilding my endurance training program.

But this run puts me back in cycle with one of the fundamental reasons I come out here. It puts me back into nature, into nature's cycles. The bright moon precedes Jupiter and Mars on the ecliptic this morning. As humans, we look up into the skies and see metaphor, message, and meaning. We delude ourselves and belittle the grandeur of our universe when we imagine reflections of ourselves in the infinite cosmos.

This is run number two in what is hopefully my long ascent to marathon distance this fall. Accomplishing this will be another cycle in nature.

Low Starting Point

It has been 10 weeks since I've run anywhere near a 30 mile week. My diet hasn't been pure as it needs enough and I have floated above my red line weight of 150 lbs. At 63, the price to pay for leanness is no crap food whatsoever, particularly when you're not running 30 to 50 mile weeks.

I've tried a couple of one and two milers in the last 3 weeks, testing my feet only to quit for the rest of the week because of residual pain or discomfort in my arches. Meanwhile, I have continued leg strength training.

Yesterday, I ran another tentative one-miler at the tail end of my weight workout. I had no discomfort at all during the day. This is a first. I woke up this morning with tight, achy arches, but this is not unusual.

This afternoon, I do another one-miler. Let's push it a bit and see what happens.

If I had an ego, I would not advertise these numbers. But the reality is that you have to start low to get high.

Patience: it has been working for me for 12 years.

Body, Mind, One

Not even counting the weeks taken off from running. It would be too depressing. Both heels are so close to 100% again. Been good about doing strength training, particularly leg work. It is surprising to me, that heels can be too sore to run on, but tolerate weighted heel raises.

The 6 or so run-stopping injuries I've had over the past 12 years have always brought some new insight into my strength training. These have usually strengthened my running. This time, my insight has been the rediscovery of how productive and satisfying doing 5 sets of a particular movement can be. When you do 15 sets of challenging, full control, compound reps per week, your mind and body gain an intimate familiarity with the movement that 9 sets cannot yield. Body and mind respond with greater strength and greater determination to attain still another movement rep, building on the last work out.

It is clear to me that physical training is also mental training.

It's Boston Monday

The Boston Marathon...possibly the biggest assembly of highly fit people in the world.

At 4:30 AM, my task is much more prosaic: five sets of strict form pull ups, done to "Eminence Front". It's simple, brutishly so. It's Boston Monday.....dumbbell pull Monday for me. No glory in my subterranean gym, just work.


My heels are perceptively healing.

Good luck today, Shalane.

Life Expectancy

I have recently read research indicating a strong correlation between grip strength and time it takes to up from the floor with remaining life expectancy in my age cohort, the Boomers. Apparently, these measurements are being used increasingly in clinical, hospital, and assisted living settings. I suggest that these are predictors of morbidity expectancy, not life.

Grip strength and the ability to lift are fundamental to the deadlift. Overall, I know of no way to measure a person's ability to generate life inducing strength and power than his/her ability to lift a dead weight off the floor.

Measures and estimates of morbidity expectancy may have their place. I hope they never apply to me. I'm more interested in life expectancy. A better estimate for life expectancy: the ability to deadlift some multiple of one's body weight many times off the floor......the more times, the better.

Simplicity

It is a straightforward protocol: perform the exercise and wait 3 minutes while your pounding heart slows, then repeat four more times. It is brutally simple.

Your breathing and heart rates are direct indicators of how hard your muscles are working. Performing the protocol above with pull ups or dead lifts energizes your entire lower and upper body respectively, leaving your muscles screaming for air as they metabolize fuel. Your system is perfused with anabolic and mood enhancing hormones. Perform this ritual in the early morning and it  rips off all vestiges of morbid slumber, waking your body, alerting your mind, and rendering the world  with razor sharp clarity.

Then something magical happens. Muscles harden and grow; body, heart, and, most importantly, will, become stronger. The pact is fulfilled.

Pact with the Future

I realize that each workout is a pact with the future, a commitment that improvement will come as a result of training.

This is particularly evident in strength training as the trainee watches reps, sets, and weight slowly increase with repeated workout. But it is true in running and even learning. With these last two, the path to improvement is not always obvious, straight, or even continuously progressive. With running, the trainee routinely must hold back to improve. With learning, the path is the most intangible and obscure because, in proper learning, the student does not always know where the path will take him or her.

In this venal and philistine age, learning is often confused with preparing for a trade. At it's highest, learning transforms the student's world view.

Thoughts while pushing iron this morning.

Mists

I've said it before, I love running in predawn fog.

The moon is waning, but still three-quarters full. It is locked in a mutual stare with Jupiter, which precedes it across the ecliptic. The stars are too pale to shine through, even Jupiter loses his brilliance in the gray blanket.

I ran 2 miles, embedded in the various exercises that are my upper body barbell pull work out. It is the second day in a row that I run. Regrettably, I feel a mild burning sensation in my left heel. We'll see how it goes as I baby it for the rest of the day.

Still....I love running in the predawn fog.

Monday, April 2

It's a cold, dark, blustery, raining morning. I have to admit it's nice to be in my warm, brightly lit, basement gym pushing iron. Today, it's upper body push.

Tomorrow, I hope to start running again. I'm mostly only feeling tingling in my right foot and some tightness in my tibialis anterior. It is improving daily. Happily, the plantar fascia soreness I was having this season is also mitigating.

All just in time for spring.